Allison Malec is a Marketing Manager at Clarkson Potter, a division of Random House, and is an editor at The Recipe Club. She lives in New York City, and loves to cook, bake and eat. She loves anything sweet, especially Momofuku Milk Bar’s Compost Cookies, Ben and Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie Crunch Ice Cream, and Vanilla Mr. Softee cones with rainbow sprinkles.
I live for apple desserts. If I had to choose only one dessert to eat for the rest of my life, I think it would be my mom’s apple crisp. However, I will say that a great apple cake or apple pie comes close.
Enter: Gooey Apple Butter Cake. This confection is a mix between an apple cake and an apple pie. A layer of cake is set beneath a bed of apple batter, and it bakes into a gooey, sweet, delicious treat.
*I must note that I had to bake my cake about 20 minutes longer than the recipe notes, since my cake was a little too gooey. But the result was perfect.
Recipe for Gooey Apple Butter Cake
Excerpted from The Casserole Queens Cookbook
Makes 6 to 8 servings
3 Granny Smith apples
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 (18.2-ounce) box yellow cake mix
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
11/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
11/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Peel and slice the apples, then toss them in a bowl with the lemon juice to keep them from turning brown. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, add the cake mix, 1/2 cup of the melted butter, and one of the eggs. Mix for 2 minutes at medium-low speed. The batter should easily come together into a ball. Transfer the batter to a 9 x 13-inch baking dish and smooth the top with a spatula.
4. In the same bowl used for the batter, beat the cream cheese at medium-low speed for 30 seconds, until fluffy. Add the remaining 1/2 cup butter, the remaining 2 eggs, vanilla, and cinnamon. Beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Add the sugar and beat for 1 more minute.
5. Fold the apple slices into the cream cheese mixture, and spread the mixture over the cake mix in the baking dish.
6. Bake for 45 minutes or until the cake jiggles slightly when gently shaken and is somewhat solidified in the center. (The cream cheese mixture will not solidify completely.) Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool in the pan for 30 minutes.
7. Stored in the refrigerator, the cake will keep for three to four days, but it will never last that long!
